


Past Life

by Evandar



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: rs_games, Fluff and Angst, M/M, R/S Games 2016, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-22 19:53:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8298379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evandar/pseuds/Evandar
Summary: R/S Games 2016 - Day 12 - Team TimeSirius has been floundering ever since he fell through the veil only to startle awake surrounded by the scarlet canopy of his old school bed.





	

**Author's Note:**

> **Team:** Time  
>  **Title:** Past Life  
>  **Rating:** PG-13  
>  **Warnings:** Time travel  
>  **Genres:** Angst, fluff  
>  **Word Count:** 1400  
>  **Summary:** Sirius has been floundering ever since he fell through the veil only to startle awake surrounded by the scarlet canopy of his old school bed.  
>  **Notes:** This really didn’t turn out how I wanted it, but I do hope that you all enjoy it. Thank you so much to S for the last-minute beta, and to R who held my hand and patted my head as I rage-cried.  
>  **Prompt:** #63 - "We do not remember days, we remember moments." - Cesare Pavese

Twenty years into the future, Molly Weasley used to tell him that he lived in the past. Sirius – thirty-five going on sixteen – finds that both incredibly unfair and inaccurate. He’s floundering. He’s _been_ floundering ever since he fell through the veil only to startle awake surrounded by the scarlet canopy of his old school bed.

His tattoos are gone. The lines around his eyes have vanished, and there’s no grey in his hair. The yellowish tint to his skin and the aching bones and persistent cough caused by Azkaban have been erased. He’s young again, beautiful again – all except for his eyes and his soul, because no amount of time travel can repair the damage left by the Dementors – and he has no idea what he’s doing. 

He doesn’t remember any of this.

Classes are both easy and baffling, because he can do the magic but hasn’t needed the theory since he left Hogwarts the first time around. He has stacks of homework that he can’t bring himself to touch because he _knows_ that it’s pointless. He’s tearing himself apart because he doesn’t understand how he got here – how he can be expected to sit happily across from corpses and traitors at every meal, and attend classes with murderers. He tells himself that they’re all still innocent. He tells himself that there’s a chance to change everything. 

He’s been pretending to be sick ever since his first lunchtime back; he’s placed a sticking charm on his curtains and shut himself away.

It’s his friends that are the worst part.

That lunchtime, he’d listened to James and Peter and all he’d been able to think about was the devastated look on Harry’s face after he’d found out about the things they used to do – still do – to Snape. How upset Harry had been when he’d found out that his father really had been an arrogant little berk as a teenager. How _he_ had felt, faced with that disappointment, knowing that there was no argument he could offer that would make it better.

He’d listened to the child that used to be his best friend planning pranks with the boy who would betray him to his death, and he hadn’t been able to cope.

He doesn’t want to have to cope, which is why he’s lying in bed with dirty hair and the same pyjamas that he’s had on for the last three days. He’s studying the way that the dust motes dance in the red light that filters through the cloth of his bed curtains; the way they flurry and spiral in time with his breath, and catch in drafts so slight that they can’t be felt. It’s soothing. It helps him forget that he’s forgotten so much.  
His curtains rustle. Dust motes dance in golden light and the bed dips under Remus’ weight. Sirius glances at him, briefly – it’s too painful to look at Remus for long. This Remus is the one that he remembered; the one that he longed for post-Azkaban. He’s happy and beautiful and _young_ , so very young, and even though he’s supposed to be dating Remus at this point, it doesn’t stop him from feeling like a dirty old man whenever he sees him.

“Sirius,” Remus whispers. He sounds like he’s hurting and that too is too much. Sirius looks back at him: at the shadows under his golden eyes and the pale cast to his skin. There’s an angry red scar from the last full moon peeking out from under his collar. Sirius can’t remember that moon. He doesn’t know if he was there for the change or if he isn’t supposed to have mastered the Animagus transformation yet. 

Remus looks down at him and sighs. He lies down, curls himself around Sirius and rests his head on his shoulder. Sirius can smell the scent of his hair and the lingering remains of his toothpaste, and it’s different from the Remus he left behind on the other side of the veil, but it’s also so _familiar_ that it leaves an ache behind his ribs.

“I wish you’d tell me what’s wrong,” Remus says. 

There’s no way that he _can_ , of course. Remus wouldn’t believe him. Or, if he did, he wouldn’t be able to understand why returning to the past has proved itself beyond Sirius’ ability to cope. Remus, always so bright and brilliant and competent, would have no idea how much it can hurt to realise that you _don’t_ remember the things you thought you held dearest. 

“It’s nothing,” Sirius says after a while. “I’ll get over it, I promise.”

Remus lifts his head. There’s a line between his brows that _Sirius_ has put there. It’s a line that the older Remus had as well, and Sirius wonders if he was the one to have caused that one too. If somehow this is as stressful for this Remus as Sirius’ arrest had been for the old one. 

There’s so much guilt now. So much guilt that his teenage self had never thought he would ever have to carry.

“You’ve been like this for days,” Remus says. “I’m worried. We _all_ are. And you –“

Sirius forces himself to smile. It’s not as hard as he’d thought it would be, despite everything. Remus is adorable in his indignation. He’d forgotten how cute he was when he was being self-righteous and idealistic. 

“And I’m being a pain in the arse,” he says. “As usual.”

Remus snorts. He reaches out a hand and brushes away a lock of Sirius’ hair. It can’t feel very pleasant, but that doesn’t stop him from doing it again. Or from leaning in and pressing a kiss to Sirius’ greasy hairline. “You said it,” he says, tone mild.

Sirius is reminded, suddenly, of the Remus that he left behind. Of the way that he hid his disappointment with sighs and fond glances, as if that was enough to disguise the way he hated how broken Sirius was. This Remus, young Remus, isn’t like that yet. Sirius still doesn’t deserve him, but this Remus hasn’t been broken down by tragedy and despair yet. To this Remus, he isn’t a man shattered by a decade in prison; he’s a stupid boyfriend going through a depressive spell.

This Remus, Sirius decides, won’t ever have to be _that_ Remus. It’s something that he’s known for the last few days: that this is a time he can change for the better. He can stop some things, avert others…and for the last few days it’s seemed an impossible task. Too much for one person. But when he thinks of it in terms of Remus, the future becomes clear again. Simple. Easy enough that he feels like he can breathe again. He wants Remus to be happy. He doesn’t want to put Remus through the misery of his ‘prank’ on Snivellus, or through the pain of losing James and Lily and Harry and Sirius and even _Peter_. He wants, more than anything, to make a future where Remus still has hope. A future full of little moments where they can lie and watch the dust together and not have to worry about anything else.

“I need a shower,” he says.

“Observant today, aren’t you,” Remus replies. There’s a faint smirk lingering at the corner of his mouth, and when Sirius shoves him off the bed in retaliation, he hits the floor with a yelp and a burst of startled laughter.

Sirius grins. He slips out of bed and helps Remus back to his feet. “I was going to ask if you wanted to join me,” he says, teasing. He still feels like a dirty old man, but he hopes that will fade much like his memories of the past did. This past, that he’s now living in.

But he knows that even if his plan doesn’t work and things still go to hell, or even if they don’t, one of the moments he’ll always remember is Remus smiling at him as he takes his hand – relieved and flushed with anticipation all at once – and leads him to the shower. He’ll always remember that.


End file.
